-7/9/2016-Back in April 2016 I was contacted by Mark Dickinson (AKA The Vampire Mark DeBlood) in regards to doing a short film called “Bataille de Sang (The Battle of Blood)-The Vampire DeBlood vs Count Dracula.” It was a short film that is the continuation from the film “Curse of the Vampire” which he made and had broadcast on TV in Binghamton, NY. I would be reprising my role as Dracula, but playing the role differently (both in look and manner) than the my role in “Tales of Dracula.” For one, this would be a silent, black and white film. Mark told me he wanted it to me more true to that time period than just a modern film with a black and white filter over it, so it requires a different technique-which moviegoers today would, mostly deem “cheesy.” I’m the self-proclaimed King of Cheese so that’s not much of a stretch 🙂 Two-as hinted at above, I would look and act different. Overall this would be a nice challenge so I said yes.
-Filming took place in Binghamton, NY. They had already shot a good chunk of the film by the time it was my turn. The weather wasn’t too hot, but I still sweated like a hog throughout this day. Makeup was done by Mark’s wife, Jessiy. I was amazed that the appliance attacked to my head didn’t get sweated off. I got all done up and outside we all went. Mark told me he films very quickly and it’s true-to the point where I would say he’s probably the fastest director I’ve worked with to date. Since this would be silent, someone would just “feed” a line to an actor, they would repeat it and so on. I came in with most of my lines memorized (cause it would help get more into character IMO) and, outside of needing a line read to me once or twice, blasted thru a good chunk of it. There were a couple of pick ups that had to be done as well with Ian Weiler and Greta Volkova. We were outside in a park filming and we hit the time limit. We knew this cause two park officials approached us saying we had to go. We got another 15 minutes out of them to finish what were were doing-going even faster than before. Unfortunately, we needed another section of the park to finish the rest and we weren’t gonna get that so that would have to wait for another day.
-Afterwards we all went to this little mini-studio Mark has and Darnell Banks took several solo and group shots of us for promos. The poster was up the next day as a result from this. I had a great time and look forward to my next time filming to get my stuff all done-including the fight scene. That’s when I’m really gonna pour on the sweat 🙂
-Pics are now up on my Acting page on Facebook
WAYNE W. JOHNSON 